


Crowley With A Baby

by Raphaela_Crowley



Category: Good Omens (Radio), Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Puts On A Puppet Show, Baby Spoons, Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hilarity Ensues, No Slash, Soft Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25371481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/Raphaela_Crowley
Summary: Wackiness ensues when Crowley accidentally gets left in charge of a complete stranger's baby. Aziraphale is determined to help him look after the child until the parents can be located, but he hasn't the foggiest clue what he's doing, either.Babies eat food, don't they? Why is this baby so uninformed and bad-tempered?
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 34





	Crowley With A Baby

_Crowley With A Baby_

A _Good Omens_ fanfiction

The sky above Mayfair was slate grey, and while it was not properly raining, there _was_ a thick mist in the air.

The doorman at Crowley's building was attempting to hustle a large family with a number of whining children out of the way, and Crowley found himself trapped behind the shrieking hoard, as they were blocking off the pavement in front of where he'd parked the Bentley the night before.

"Ooh-riiiiight, luvv," snarled a stocky woman wearing a remarkably large and floppy yellow hat who appeared to be the mother – or, at least, somewhat in charge. "We're moving...we're moving... Don't be carrying on as if we weren't moving."

"But you _aren't_ moving," Crowley drily piped up from behind them, unheeded.

"Here!" The yellow hat lady handed what – from that angle – appeared to be a pudgy bundle of tartan cloth to the eldest of her brood. "Hold her."

The eldest, who appeared to be a boy of around fourteen years old, handed the baby (which is what the bundle turned out to be) to his nearest sister, who was probably about eleven and in pigtails. "Oi, take it. Hot potato."

"Listen. I _really_ need to get to my car," Crowley protested, pushing his way further out so that he was standing beside the younger kids.

Demons are not priorities to tired family matriarchs. You'll never see a harried mother of four or more children trying to perform an exorcism; it's much too far down the list of more important things they've got to deal with, such as laundry and getting dinner cooked and making sure Jimmy doesn't stick his finger in the electrical socket again. Crowley probably could have ripped off his sunglasses in front of this lot – or gone right ahead and turned himself into a big menacing black snake – and the only parental response would be some vague warning that touching wildlife found on the streets of London is not sanitary behaviour; this, in turn, would be followed by disappointed groans from the row of sulky children who'd no doubt want to play with the serpent-man, or at the very least poke him with a stick.

Normally, Crowley rather liked children – it was a failing of his he'd come to accept over time – but he wasn't too thrilled with _these_ at the moment. He was already late to pick up Aziraphale. It was a five-minute drive to Soho, and here he was, not even in the car yet.

The baby – which appeared to be perhaps a year or so old – was being passed from kid to kid, none of which wanted to take responsibility for their youngest sibling.

Crowley bent over to nudge a five-year-old out of the way, thinking he might have spotted a direct path to the Bentley behind them if he darted through before the nine-year-old with his finger up his nose closed the gap, when a four-year-old he hadn't noticed said, "'ot 'tato," and dropped the baby in his arms.

"Come on, then!" the mother shouted, waving them over.

The army of children began to move as if she'd just promised them ice cream, waddling away from a very befuddled Crowley, who still held their baby sibling.

" _Wait_!" he called after them, hoisting the child up dramatically like he was Rafiki from the Lion King. "You forgot your, er..."

They were all piling into the world's most tacky mauve van, painted with peace signs and gaudy flowers; there were peeling stick-on flames near the wheels. Under normal circumstances, Crowley would have been embarrassed if somebody parked that abomination within six blocks of his beautiful Bentley.

The van disappeared in a cloud of black exhaust fumes. You could still hear the children screaming about who was touching who in the back seat even after it was out of sight.

There was never any chance anybody in the vehicle was going to hear Crowley as he finished with, "... _Baby_ ," lamely.

* * *

Aziraphale – for lack of anything else to do when the demon meant to be giving him a lift was late – was going through an inventory checklist of the books on the shelf closest to the door. "Let me see... We've got Jane Austen, Charles Dickens – oh, he was a _nice_ man – Victor Hugo..." The angel's eyes flitted towards the door, spying a familiar figure through the glass. "Crowley with a baby... Charlotte Br–" He stopped, his manicured hands nearly dropping the clipboard in surprise. " _Crowley with a baby_?"

The door swung open, bells jingling merrily, though neither demon nor angel actually touched it.

"Crowley," said Aziraphale, with slow concern. "Whose child is that?"

"Oh, don't worry, it's not the Antichrist – I'm pretty sure that's still several centuries off – it's just some baby."

"Just some baby?" He frowned in confusion. "For pity's sake! Crowley, you need to return it to its mother immediately. You're not supposed to separate human young from their parents."

"Oh, _right_ – because I just wanted a pet human so damn badly," hissed Crowley sarcastically.

"Well, one never knows, my dear," said Aziraphale, shaking his head and miracling the clipboard into the other room with a gesture. "Not with _you_."

"Belongs to some woman who was outside my building."

"So I take it we aren't going to the British museum today," Aziraphale concluded, motioning for Crowley to come further into the shop.

"Don't see why not," Crowley said, walking past the register and towards the back room, Aziraphale right behind him. "It's child friendly."

"We can't go gadding about London with some stranger's baby in tow."

"Why not?" The demon sounded genuinely mystified.

"Because..." he stammered. "Because we've got to return it to wherever it belongs."

"Way I see it," Crowley said, shrugging but carefully so as not to jolt the child in his arms too much, "they're bound to realise the baby's missing sooner or later, put up a notice, and we'll just hand it over then."

"It's not a dog – people don't just put up lost baby posters and hope someone calls." The angel had gone rather pale. "There's going to be an almighty row if you're spotted with _that_. You ought to have phoned the police at once."

"Yeah..." He sniffed. "Police don't like me."

"With the appalling amount of traffic laws you've broken over the years, I'm not surprised." A new thought occurred to Aziraphale. "You didn't speed all the way here with the baby in the car?"

"Oh, don't look at me like that – it was perfectly safe."

" _Crowley_!" He was appalled. "Did you even use a car-seat?"

"Nah, I just had the baby on my lap – kid seemed to like it, pretended to drive." The demon nodded down – with an expression of dotting approval – at the baby. "Honked the horn and everything."

Aziraphale reached for the baby. "You're clearly a danger to this baby's welfare, which means I'm morally obligated to take over from here."

The baby started crying, snatching at the demon's suit-jacket and struggling to hold on against the angelic tug.

"I don't think it likes you, angel."

"Nonsense, dear fellow. Children are vessels of goodness, it's a commonly know fact, and angels – being God's messengers – are obviously–" He cut himself off as the baby blew a raspberry at him, then grabbed his bow-tie and _yanked_. " _This_ child, on the other hand," – the angel glared glarefully at the toddler snuggling in his friend's arms – "is clearly possessed by forces of darkness."

"Aw, did the mean angel scare you?" Crowley pouted and patted the baby consolingly on the back. "There, there. No more tears." The baby stopped howling, reaching up and pulling off Crowley's sunglasses. " _Hey_!"

"How precious. Hold still, I'll take a photograph." Aziraphale glanced around fruitlessly for his antique camera.

Crowley – ignoring Aziraphale's attempt to immortalize this highly embarrassing moment – tried unsuccessfully to get his sunglasses back from the baby, who was now wearing them and going, " _Ooooo_!"

"You know, it's rather a big baby," mused Aziraphale.

"Oi, don't call my baby _fat_."

"It's not your–" he sighed, rolling his eyes. "I _meant_ , dear, that it may be able to _talk_ – we could ask it who its mother is."

Crowley's brow rose. "Worth a shot, I suppose." He set the child down on the rug in the centre of the room, crouching beside it.

Aziraphale began to speak to the baby like it was his accountant. "Now, then, if you could be so kind as to inform us regarding the identity of your parents so we might–"

" _Boo_ ," said the baby, cheeks blown out. "Boo-boo."

"Small human," tried Crowley, "where's your mum?"

"We'll need an address," Aziraphale added, earnestly.

"Tuuuffeeh," said the baby.

"Is that a street name?" Aziraphale whispered to Crowley, snagging the demon's wrist and squeezing it excitedly, hoping they'd had a breakthrough.

He shook his head, pulling his hand free. "I think it just wants toffee."

"Where'm I meant to get that? I'm not running a sweet shop."

"Well," reasoned the demon, "maybe if we _give_ it toffee, it'll tell us what we want to know."

"This is quickly turning into a hostage situation."

"I still say we can meet the demands – one measly bag of toffees; not very expensive."

"This is," snapped Aziraphale, utterly exasperated, "the most fiendishly uninformed child I've ever met. Can't _you_ remember anything about the mother?"

"Yellow hat, terrible taste in cars."

"Never mind." Aziraphale began to examine the blankets the baby had been wrapped in – they were tartan, which was nice, but they didn't have a name-tag or return address, which was not so nice.

(He _did_ locate _one_ tag, momentarily feeling hopeful, but that one only proclaimed the blanket was made in America, and it had a teensy flag printed on the under-flap containing an incorrect number of stars, which was interesting to look at but not particularly informative.)

"Mear," said the baby, looking at Crowley.

"What's mear?"

Aziraphale set the blankets aside. "I think _you_ are, my dear."

The baby lifted a pudgy hand and pointed. " _Mear_!"

"Is that baby trying to say 'my dear'?" Crowley put his hand to his heart, oddly touched.

"You taught it a word, jolly good!" Aziraphale was thrilled. "Do let me try." He grinned an angelic megawatt smile down at the baby. "Can you say _Aziraphale_?"

" _No_!" squealed the baby, with whom the jury still seemed to be out on Aziraphale in general.

"Of course it can't say Aziraphale, it's a _baby_." Crowley gave him a scornful look. "Why not just ask the poor kid to say _supercalifragilisticexpialidocious_?"

"Mear! Up, up." The baby's arms were outstretched.

"Well, you heard the child, _Mear._ " Aziraphale smirked, folding his arms across his chest. "You are, after all, the one who suggested we give into its demands."

" _Stop_ smiling at me like that," Crowley snarled, lifting the delighted baby into his arms.

* * *

"Yes, Crowley, I know I said we shouldn't be gadding about with a stranger's baby in tow–" Aziraphale paused, mid-sentence, in order to take a breath and hold open the door of the department store open for a – very sullen-looking – Crowley, who lifted the shiny black-and-silver pram he was wheeling along the pavement over the threshold with a light grunt. " _However_ if we are unable to locate the child's parents tonight, we are currently unequipped to take care of it. It'll need food...and..." The angel stopped again. He didn't actually know, for certain, what it was babies needed. "Food," he said again. "A great deal of food." He was pretty sure about the food. "Do keep up, my dear."

"In a minute," snarled Crowley, wheeling the pram past a miniature manikin dressed in what appeared to be lederhosen, " _you're_ going to be pushing this thing."

"There's no need to be surly – it'll be simple enough once we get started. Everything's going to be tickey-boo." The angel waved politely at a saleswoman, who had been watching them from the corner of her eye. "Beg pardon, young lady, but could you help us? We need to purchase some things for a baby."

The saleswoman walked over – Crowley grinned like an axe murderer, lifted one hand off the pram, and waggled his fingers.

She cleared her throat. She was nothing if not a professional. "What do you have at home?"

" _Nothing_ ," Aziraphale told her. "I'm afraid we're quite new at this."

"Very well..." Her tone grew strained and a touch slower. "So we'll start off with a crib."

Crowley shook his head. "Hang on. No cribs. We're not putting the baby behind bars. It's done nothing wrong."

"Crowley, the woman knows what she's talking about," argued Aziraphale; "if she says we need a crib, we–"

"I'm not turning my flat into some sort of sick child prison."

The angel's hands rested impatiently on his hips. "Where do you propose the baby sleeps then?"

"On the couch."

"The _couch_?" Aziraphale made some very distressed British noises.

"It's an expensive couch," Crowley insisted, rather heatedly.

"Let's come back to the crib, then, yeah?" The saleswoman attempted to salvage something out of this. "How about baby spoons?" She took a handful of tiny, impossibly dainty silverware from a little display to their left and held it out for Aziraphale to examine.

"Oh, how charming." He beamed over at the demon. "Look at the little spoons, Crowley."

"We have spoons at the flat, angel."

"But these are regulation _baby_ spoons."

"What the Heaven is _wrong_ with this place?" Crowley muttered. "It's like I've entered the Twilight Zone."

"I'm dreadfully sorry." Aziraphale smiled shakily at the woman. "We may need a few moments."

The woman nodded. "I'll be at the register – if you need me, you can ring the service bell."

Whirling on Crowley, Aziraphale demanded to know why the demon was being so difficult.

"I just don't see the point of all this," he hissed. "It's a baby – not some sort of exotic lizard."

" _Mear_!" screamed the pram like it was shouting out from the bowels of Hell.

Crowley bent over and stuck his head inside. "I'm right here."

Comforted, the baby stopped screaming and resumed whatever it was previously doing under there.

"Tell you what," Aziraphale said diplomatically, "I'll agree to forgo the crib as well as anything else you deem excessive..."

" _If_?" pressed Crowley, knowing there must be a catch.

"If you let me buy the little spoons."

Crowley sighed. "Deal."

* * *

The angel wheeled the pram towards the ball pit display near the back of the store while Crowley grimly compared prices on bibs with little embroidered frogs and ducks.

He stopped at one that had a depiction of Noah's Ark on it. "Right, _that's_ a child friendly story," snorted the demon sardonically. "Let's dribble applesauce all over the drowning people."

"Oh, how cute! Crowley, _look_! They've got a little ball pit for the children set up." Aziraphale pointed happily. "Isn't that nice?"

It was at that moment that Crowley thought he saw someone who looked rather a lot like Beelzebub go by, panicked, and shoved Aziraphale right into the aforementioned ball pit, trying to act like he was just casually causing mischief in a store he was visiting for no particular reason.

Except it turned out to just be a random woman in a fluffy hat which only _somewhat_ resembled a giant fly up close.

She looked at the leering, nodding demon like he was mental and protectively clutched the toddler she was carrying (which Crowley hadn't seen before, because of the angle at which she'd been turned) a little closer to her person.

Oops.

Aziraphale's head emerged from the ball pit, and he glared at Crowley. "Excuse me, was that entirely _necessary_?"

"Sorry, angel." He shrugged. "I thought I saw Beelzebub."

"Here?" he snapped. "What on earth would she be doing _here_?"

"I don't _know_ – buying the world's most unsettling bibs? You've got to admit that's _sort_ of evil."

Frowning, Aziraphale picked up one of the plastic balls and whipped it at him.

Because the angel was a lousy shot, Crowley easily avoided it, and then decided to reach in and pick one up to throw back at him.

A store employee – not the saleswoman who had helped them before, but a very stuffy-looking man in his early thirties – spotted them and barked, "Hey! We don't allow grown men to play with the balls."

"I'm not going to go there," snickered Crowley, sotto voce, deeming the obvious joke – while hilariously apparent – rather beneath him.

What he decided _wasn't_ beneath him was hurling a ball at the employee's right eye and nailing him in the lower forehead, making the baby in the pram laugh hysterically.

Because they got kicked out of the store for that, before Aziraphale could buy the little spoons Crowley had promised him, he let the angel buy several puppets from the next department store they went to.

* * *

_Back at Crowley's flat, early evening_ :

While Crowley attempted to feed the baby (not from the Aziraphale approved baby-food, but from a bag of toffees – anything resembling a method he might have had in all this had undisputedly broken down and left him resorting to full-on bribery at this point), Aziraphale was putting on a nauseatingly trite little show with the puppets.

On one hand, the principality had a rather sad-looking snake puppet with bright yellow button-eyes and on the other was a little golden-haired angel sporting a sparkly halo and fluffy, droopy wings with an appearance which suggested it belonged on top of a Halmark Christmas Tree.

"Hello there, nice snake," said Aziraphale, making the angel on his hand bob its head. "The thing is, my friend, I think it best if you don't do bad things any more – you're a _nice_ snake, after all."

Crowley almost dropped the bag of toffees.

Aziraphale made the snake nod. "I ssssssseee," he said, in his – notably bad – impression of Crowley's hiss. "That makes sssenssse." Some manner of jingle-bell attached to the puppet-angel's skirt jingled happily. "Very good," added Aziraphale, doing a sugar-sweet angel voice again. "Now, how about a hug?" He had the two puppets locked in a warm embrace, the angel puppet's broad hands patting the snake puppet on the back going, "There, there, isn't that better?"

"Oh, _boo_!" snapped Crowley, leaving the – rather astonished – baby with free rein to take all the toffees she wanted, and yanking the puppets away from Aziraphale. "Angel, that was the stupidest thing I've ever–"

"Well, let's see _you_ come up with something better on the spot like that!"

Crowley cleared his throat, put the angel puppet on his hand, straightened out its skirt, then – in a disturbingly pitch-perfect imitation of Aziraphale's voice – went, "I had my flaming sword here only a moment ago–" He made the puppet look down at the floor; it jingled again. "I must have put it down somewhere–" The puppet's hand was pressed dramatically to its shiny, felt forehead. "Forget my own head next."

"Yes, yes, all right," huffed Aziraphale, his face gone quite red. "Let's... Let's move _on_."

"He's just like you," Crowley marvelled, looking at the puppet on his hand. "You were right after all, Aziraphale, puppets _are_ entertaining." He made the puppet look from Aziraphale, to the baby, and then back to himself. " _Crowley, slow down, you're going to get us discorporated_!" He grinned wickedly. "I almost don't need you at all any more." His hand waggled the puppet at the baby. "What do you think, human child?"

The baby giggled, clapping.

The phone rang.

"Would you mind getting that?" Crowley asked, busy amusing the baby.

Aziraphale, who would have gone to the gates of Hell themselves to get out of that room, assured the demon it wasn't any trouble, and walked into Crowley's office to pick the handset up before it stopped ringing and started making those weird beeping noises it was wont to.

After he'd been in there for several minutes, Crowley distracted the baby by turning on the television, leaving the channel on some colourful children's program with dancing shapes and numbers, and went to check on Aziraphale.

"So," he said, peeking his head into the office, "what's happening?"

Aziraphale covered the receiver with his hand. "I've got a woman here – says she was outside this building earlier – wants to know if you have her baby."

"Ask her to describe it."

Removing his hand, Aziraphale did so. "Well," he exclaimed a moment later, sounding shocked, "there really is no need for that kind of language!"

"Probably the real mother, then," Crowley concluded grimly. "Tell her to swing by and we'll give it back."

* * *

_Sometime after midnight, still at Crowley's flat:_

"Do you know, Crowley," said Aziraphale, as he went about the flat and gathered up all the leftover baby things they'd bought in order to return them to the store the next day, "I can't find that angel hand-puppet anywhere?"

"Oh, really?" The demon's brow lifted, almost comically. "Is that so?" One of his hands was behind his back – Aziraphale seemed not to notice.

"Yes, really, it's the oddest thing." He reached up and scratched his head in confusion. "I've got that snake – and Mr. Frog – and Harry the Rabbit – but no angel."

"How odd."

"Very." He gathered up the basketful of what he had been able to find. "Well, I'll be seeing you in a few weeks – probably best we don't visit each other for a while after this." He grimaced apologetically. "I mean, it would have been rather unfortunate if my side found out I was _here_ all evening."

Crowley nodded, a little glumly. Something behind his back jingled.

Aziraphale raised a pale eyebrow. He could have _said_ something, could have asked for the puppet back, since he'd worked it out from there – he wasn't _stupid_ – but he chose not to embarrass his friend, who he imagined might be lonelier in-between their arranged meetings than he let on. "Got some change in your pocket, have you?" He patted the demon on the arm. "Well, goodbye, my dear. I'll see you soon."

Crowley went over, jingling again, and held the door open for him. "Goodnight, angel."


End file.
